1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a moving handrail disinfecting device for passenger conveyor, and more particularly, to a moving handrail disinfecting device for passenger conveyor which can disinfect moving handrails of passenger conveyors such as escalators and moving pavements.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
In the public facilities and commercial facilities such as the stations and department stores, escalators are placed. An escalator has endless moving handrails which circuit in synchronism with steps (treadboards) on which users stand on both sides thereof. In order to use the escalator safely, the users preferably get on the steps with holding onto the moving handrail and keep on holding onto the moving handrail until they get off.
However, since the moving handrails of the escalators are held by large numbers of the general public, some of the users do not like to touch the moving handrails. Especially in the season of the spread of influenza or the like, there are a lot of users who get on the escalators with trying not to touch the moving handrails thereof in fear of a virus infection through the medium of the moving handrails.
Therefore, disinfecting devices for moving handrails of passenger conveyors have been proposed. For example, in the below-mentioned Patent Document 1, a device has been disclosed, having a roller which disinfects the surface of a moving handrail in the vicinity of an inlet of the moving handrail within a truss. Using this disinfecting device, when a user who came to a landing of an escalator is detected by a sensor, the moving handrail is disinfected by allowing the roller to make contact with the moving handrail only during the interval that the moving handrail makes a circuit.
However, using the disinfecting device described in the Patent Document 1, every time a user of the escalator is detected, the disinfection by the roller is conducted. As a result, in places where there are a lot of passengers, the disinfection by the roller is likely to be continuously conducted. Therefore, there is a problem that the roller and associated parts which make contact with the moving handrail are quickly deteriorated. Moreover, since the roller is arranged within the truss, there is another problem that maintenance work such as replacement of those parts is not easy to perform.
Using the disinfecting device described in the Patent Document 1, since the disinfection is conducted without regard to a sticking state of dirt (tiny dirt such as dust, oil element, etc.), viruses and the like to the moving handrail, the frequency of refilling of a disinfection solution and that of replacement of the roller tend to be high, leading to a problem of a high maintenance cost.
In the case of a large facility, a dozen or more escalators are placed in the whole facility. Supposing that the disinfecting devices described in the Patent Document 1 are installed on every escalator in such facility, since the number of users of each escalator varies depending on its arranged place, the disinfecting devices installed on each escalator vary in degree of deterioration of the roller and that of dirt, and in decrease of the disinfection solution and the like. However, since these situations of each disinfecting device cannot be seen from the outside of the disinfecting device, it is necessary to uniformly perform maintenance work on every disinfecting device. Therefore, since the burden of such maintenance work is heavy and it is impossible to appropriately manage every disinfecting device, it is difficult to actually install such disinfecting devices.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2011-121664